ExecConnect creates wheely good idea

A recently formed group of area executives called ExecConnect is backing the city’s upcoming Denver Bike Sharing program — and cites the partnership as a new way for business to work with government to improve the area’s quality of life.

The group is comprised of 12 business and nonprofit leaders that Denver public relations/branding firm Dovetail Solutions put together. ExecConnect will offer the city services such as access to its network of influential area residents and potential funding for a publicity campaign when the program launches next year, members said.

Organizers say the effort fosters a new level of cooperation in using private funds to advance public projects. Gordon Miller, Dovetail senior partner of strategic services, said while most business groups focus on helping members’ companies, ExecConnect will look beyond that to aid civic improvements.

“Most people join business networking groups because they think it will be a benefit to them,” Miller said. “We want people to join our group because it’s going to be a benefit to the city and the state.”

Denver Bike Share grew from a 2008 Democratic National Convention experiment, when Humana Inc. and nonprofit Bikes Belong brought 1,000 bicycles to the city and let registered participants check them out for free. It shut down after the DNC, but Mayor John Hickenlooper announced in January that he wanted to make Denver the first U.S. city to establish such a program permanently.

City officials have organized a nonprofit organization, Denver Bike Sharing, to buy 600 specially made bikes from manufacturer Trek Bicycle Corp in Waterloo, Wis. The city has estimated the program’s startup cost at between $1.7 million and $2 million, which is coming from grants and donations.

Officials plan to set up 40 to 50 racks around downtown, Cherry Creek and the University of Denver, and allow fee-paying participants to take bikes from any of them, ride them to a destination and deposit them at the nearest station.

The program, which is in competition with Boston and Minneapolis to be the first one implemented in the United States, will launch in late April, after the snow thaws, said Steve Sander, director of strategic marketing for the city. Until then, officials must figure out where to place the racks and publicize the effort.

ExecConnect will not, as a group, contribute startup costs. But members will prove especially valuable in the role of being “ambassadors to the community who will help connect us with resources,” Sander said.

The group can offer its networking connections and help the city link with owners of properties where the bike racks could be placed, he said. ExecConnect members also will help with fundraising and finding office space, Sander said.

“We don’t have a large staff. … I can only go out and meet with so many people, and so can the other people we have working on this project,” he said. “If [ExecConnect members] are aware of bike-sharing and they talk about it in their circles, that helps us in getting more people to be aware of it.”

Miller and Andy Boian, president and CEO of Dovetail Solutions, chose the group’s members, who include CEOs and foundation leaders.

ExecConnect picked the bike-sharing program as its first civic outreach because of its environmental benefits and potential popularity, said Tom Lee, a partner at the Frederick Ross commercial real estate firm and an ExecConnect member. Because Denver residents and visitors are athletically oriented, the project could improve sustainability, tourism and downtown’s image, he said.

The group still is deciding what will go into the publicity effort, but it could include word-of-mouth, bus billboards and park-bench advertising, said member Landri Taylor, president/CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan Denver.